I just purchased a new laptop for my son who is graduating this spring. The laptop uses the new Intel i5 chip, the i7 chip version was nearly $500 more. He absolutely loves the laptop and has commented several times on how fast it runs, especially compared with the old Centrino laptop he has used up to now.
This got me thinking about possibly purchasing one of the new i7 desktops for development. Wondering what the difference is between the i5 and i7, I went straight to the Intel website to find out.
According to Intel the new features that set the i7 apart from the i5 (and other processors) include faster clock speeds, 4 cores capable of running 8 threads simultaneously (6 and 12 respectively on the i7 Extreme), and intelligent Intel Turbo Boost technology. All of this combines to make the i7 a premier candidate for 3D gamers and multimedia applications. That’s great for the gamers, who tend to tax processors more than most businesses by the way. But, how do these features translate to our world of business and development work?
Four cores double the processing capabilities and provide extra speed for multi-threaded applications. If you use a computer with the i7 for virtualization, it means you can run more virtual machines before the system becomes noticeably taxed. In my case, it is typical to have several virtual machines running to simulate a network environment for development. Added to this are the additional resources required to run Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, and/or Camtasia. I have frequently struggled to eke out that last little bit of performance with all of these running.
This brings me to the Intel Turbo Boost Technology. The i5 and i7 processors include this intelligent speed boosting technology. These processors constantly monitor resource usage and dynamically increase the processor speed when needed. The converse is also true. The processor decreases speed when the demands on it are light. When the speed decreases, power consumption also decreases. So, when we are running multiple virtual machines or several instances of SQL Server 2008, the processor can boost itself to a higher speed if all of the applications require processing time, and conserve energy when only one or two of them are running.
Hyper-Threading enables each processor core to act like two cores by running up to two threads when necessary. The technology ensures that at each thread runs during the pause, or down times for the other thread to maximize each clock cycle.
One last feature that impresses me is Application Targeted Accelerators. Application Targeted Accelerators are special fixed-function additions to the processor that handle specific duties outside of the mainstream core processing. The applications that will benefit the most include graphics, video encoding and processing, 3-D imaging, gaming (really?), string and text processing, CRC checking, lexing, regular expression evaluation, virus scanning and intrusion detection.
Another significant feature is the enhanced vPro technologies. I think I will save that for a future blog.
An internal paint job to avoid monotony and quality equipment completes the package.
color with splashes of bright colors helped lighten the small space.
A tube pre-amp from Behringer provides a warm, smooth sound that rounds out the dull sound of purely digital recordings. The amp also provides the phantom power required by the 
Cardinal microphone.
movement while recording the video portion of projects. Using a mouse works fine. However, the mouse would not always register when I moved it. Not to mention that the mouse pad is rarely able to cover the entire space on the monitor resulting in a jerky recording from picking the mouse up and moving back to the other side of the pad so it would roll clear across the screen. The digitizing tablet represents the entire area of the monitor providing instant movement of the cursor without the typical trials of a mouse.
